Poetry: “Abecedarian In Secret Murmurs” by Jessica Kim

Abecedarian in secret murmurs

and I will tell you how I am the best liar in the world

but you will shake your head no. Talk about being 

conceited. A sister posed as crystalware, perched on the 

dining table. One day she will learn to mimic stoicism, 

emotionless and unrelenting. Is this what you want: 

forgotten love letters, candle wax, these mementos   

gone. You suddenly begin asking too many questions.

Have you ever ridden the evening train to solitude?  

Is there a vernacular for every loss you don’t know about

just yet? I find it strange, the way you look for answers by 

kniving into a belly. Desperation. Nightfall dips into  

lamplight and all I see is the curvature of your spine in 

mossy silhouette, distilled in freshwater. Perhaps you are 

not human, your limbs dissolving into cinders and

obsidian. For once I will tell you the truth, I was a  

paleontologist in my past life. Mistaking limestone and 

quartz for fossils. Chisel intricate ancestry on  

rubbled cartilage like I will be memorialized. Erased by 

stillness, some unforgiving longing. Would you break 

tradition for survival? In due course, I discover your ashes 

under my fingernails and wonder where it all ended. 

Victims in the making. I have almost grown too fond of 

windsong, the slow crescendo of a sister’s death on the 

xylophone, hypnosis. You shatter aspirations with no 

yearning for girlhood. I am awake, sunlight angled at the   

zenith of your fingers. Too late, vaporized in muffles. 

About Jessica Kim

Jessica Kim is a disabled poet from California. A two-time 2021 Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wildness Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue, Grain Magazine, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and more. She is the founding editor of The Lumiere Review. Find her at www.jessicakimwrites.weebly.com, or @jessiicable on twitter and instagram.